Bonds of Blood
by Adara-chan67
Summary: What if the person that John Winchester had a kid with wasn't Kate Milligan? There's a good chance that this one will include Limp!Sam, Limp!Cal, or both.
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer: Rob Thurman owns my soul, but I own nothing at all except for this laptop._

_Characters: Sam, Dean, Cal, Niko, and various baddies_

_Setting: Before _AHBL_ and _Deathwish

_Warnings: __All right, so here's the thing: if you hated the entire premise of the _Supernatural _episode "Jump the Shark," turn back now, because you will not like this story. There are no spoilers for that episode, and in fact, it is AU from said episode, but you still will not like this story if you hated the idea of Adam. There. You have been warned._

* * *

Prologue

_"Ngh…man, why are we still out here?"_

_Niko Leandros raised one eyebrow and reached out to twist one of his brother's ears, hard. "Because, young grasshopper, tonight we are doing what we do every other night."_

_"Try to take over the world?"_

_"Excuse me?"_

_"…Never mind. But seriously, we've been looking for this stupid thing for five hours! You don't seriously think we're gonna find it this time, do you?"_

_"Perhaps, perhaps not. But money is money, Cal."_

_"Yeah, well, all I can say is that this has gotta be the most annoying hundred bucks we've ever made. If we even make it."_

_"We will, one way or another. Leandros Co. has never failed yet."_

_"Really? Interesting viewpoint you have."_

_"Stop talking now, please."_

_"Why? It's not like there's anything around to hear us—"_

_"Well, I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but you're wrong on that count."_

_The effect of these words, spoken as they were by a strange, smooth voice, had an instant effect. Cal swore under his breath and reached for his gun while Niko eased a shoulder in front of him, slid a sword from the sheath strapped to his back, and said calmly, "You see, Cal, what comes from your unnecessarily loud whining?"_

_"Yeah, Cal, buddy, you should really work on that. After all, you never know what bad, bad people could be lurking in a place like this."_

_"Cal?" Niko said, still calmly and without taking his eyes off the very man-shaped figure standing not ten feet from them._

_Cal shook his head. "Definitely not a people. It smells like…like burning matches."_

_And just like that, the confusion that only Cal could have read in his brother faded and Niko murmured, "Ah. Well, that certainly clears things up. You may as well put your gun away, brother. It won't work. And we'll have a talk about your grammar later." As he spoke, he made his sword disappear under his duster and produced a flask at the same time._

_"Uh…Nik? I know you're a man of many talents, but do you really think drinking…whatever that thing is…under the table is going to work?"_

_Niko was about to answer—probably in the form of something painful for Cal-when the human-shaped figure vanished, as if into thin air._

_"Uh…okay…" Cal said slowly, relaxing his stance. "Well, that was wei—"_

_But Niko cut him off with a sharp, "Move." He turned around as he spoke, his hand extending to pull Cal behind him—_

_And then the night went very abruptly from boring to bloody as the creature finally struck._

* * *

_Author's Note: Okay, so I'm having some issues with uploading things—document manager hates me—so my updates will be even more sporadic than usual for a while. I think I've come up with a temporary solution, but it could go poof anytime. I hope it doesn't, though…_

_Well, anyways, all—review, please! _

**TBC**


	2. Visions and Alleys

Chapter 1

"Oh, God…"

"Sammy?"

"Oh, God, his _head…"_

"Sammy…"

"It was just _gone_…and there was so much _blood…"_

"_SAM!"_

The second repetition of his name, clear and sharp, at last penetrated the gray film over his eyes, and Sam's vision cleared slowly until he could make out his brother's hazel eyes. Narrowed with concerned and unhappiness. As Sam blinked away the last of the pictures, other sensations began to take the place of those he'd just felt—firm hands on his shoulders where there had been nothing before, carpeted wood floor taking the place of concrete digging into his knees, and the smell of gun oil instead of the coppery scent of the blood that had bathed the dark alley in his mind's eye.

The change was…disconcerting. He'd been experiencing it for months now, and the shooting pain in his head for longer than that, but he was beginning to doubt that he'd ever get used to either.

"Hey, Sam. C'mon, dude, work with me here—snap out of it." Dean waited until Sam's eyes met his, then murmured, "That's better. Now what'd you see?"

"Uh…two guys…in an alley. They were talking—it didn't make much sense, the stuff they said, but…they definitely weren't civilians."

"Hunters?" Dean asked, in some surprise.

"No, I don't think so. I dunno. But…Dean, a demon showed up. And it was definitely looking for them."

Dean blinked. "Okay, so…what'd it want?"

"I'm not sure—they definitely didn't know what it was. Well, one of them seemed to know _what_ it was, but not like it was really _familiar_ with them…know what I mean?"

"Considering all the sense you're not making, sure."

Sam shook his head and held out his arm, murmuring as Dean helped him to his feet, "Whatever, let's just get going."

He was halfway to the door with his duffel before Dean said pointedly, "Uh, Sammy?"

"What?"

"Where are we going?"

XXX

Sam never had been able to figure out where Dean's aversion to New York City had come from. He'd been to every major and most of the minor cities on the map, and as far as Sam knew he viewed them all the same way, whether they were big cities or small counties or mountain towns or the homes of national landmarks; they were all just jobs, neutral, not to be liked or hated.

Except for New York City. Whenever that particular destination was mentioned, Dean would twitch, go silent for awhile, and then begin firing off complaints. And as far as Sam could tell, there was no _reason_ for it. Like Dean's fear of planes, this hatred was entirely unfounded, rather than being brought on by an actual event.

But unfounded or not, the hatred existed, and Sam knew that the moment he told Dean their destination he would have to endure an immediate litany of grievances.

Dean proved him right, and when they arrived in the city fourteen hours later, Sam practically leapt at the chance to stop for breakfast while they figured out what to do next.

"Okay, so first thing's first: how long do we have?" Dean asked, once they were tucked into the corner booth of a tiny diner with their food and two gigantic cups of coffee.

Sam shrugged. "Well, I never see anything too far in advance, so it should be tonight."

"And it couldn't have happened already, right?"

Sam shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Didn't get that feeling, anyway."

"So let's just assume it's tonight. Next question: where?"

"That's gonna be a little harder. You bring in the city map?"

"You mean the one that you made me stop and buy not fifteen minutes ago? No, sorry, forgot it," Dean replied, rolling his eyes and slapping the folded rectangle down next to Sam's plate.

Sam decided not to reply, but rather downed a forkful of eggs and opened the map to study it. They ate in silence for a few minutes before the younger Winchesters finally said, "Found it."

Dean leaned over to peer at the spot he was indicating. "You sure?"

"Yeah. I recognize the names of the bar and the sandwich shop across the street."

Dean nodded. "Okay, so we know where and when, so I guess all there is to do now is find out the who and the why."

"I didn't catch any last names, but one of them was named Cal and the other was Nik. And the Nik guy mentioned something he called 'Leandros Co.' Could be a last name."

"Well, it gives us a place to start, anyway. So let's finish up here, grab a room, and try to get some profiles to go with those names, and we'll head out before nightfall?"

"Sounds good."

"'Course it does, it was my plan."

XXX

"Huh. That's kinda weird."

"What?" Dean asked, looking up from the hunting (deer, not ghost) magazine he'd picked up after he'd tossed the remote aside in frustration an hour before.

"It's this Leandros Co. the guy mentioned. It doesn't exist—and neither do the guys, apparently."

"What?" Dean asked, eyebrows knitting together in confusion as he put the magazine down and come to stand behind him.

"I've looked at everything—police records, I.D.s issued, New York census files, everything I've ever learned to hack, and I came up with nothing. And if Leandros Co. is an actual company, then it hasn't incorporated or gotten any kind of permit to exist."

"Well, maybe he wasn't talking literally."

"Yeah, maybe. Probably. But that doesn't explain why I couldn't find the guys."

"You sure you're spelling it right?"

"I've tried every variation of Leandros I can think of, and there are only so many ways you can twist the names Cal and Nik."

"Well, what about newspaper articles?"

"If they've ever done anything to make the papers, their names aren't mentioned."

"Huh. You're right, that's weird. What do you think it means?"

Sam looked up at him and shrugged. "I don't think there are too many answers here. They have to exist, and be here, because my visions have never been wrong before. So…"

"They're probably living like we do, under the radar. So does that mean they're hunters after all?"

"Maybe, but…I don't think so. There are a lot of possible explanations. Con artists."

"Murders."

"Running from the cops."

"Running from something else, maybe."

"Like what? And what does all this have to do with the fact that they apparently know about all the crap we deal with?"

Sam sighed and rubbed his head. "I don't know, Dean. I don't have any answers here. I'm just as confused as you are."

"So I guess we'll just have to wait until tonight, then," Dean said reluctantly, turning to go back to his bed. "Jeez, where's Garcia when you need her?"

"Who?"

"…Never mind. I'm going to sleep. We'll be up all night again."

"I'll look a little more."

Dean shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just try to get a little sleep, huh?"

"I will, Dad."

"Liar."

XXX

"This the place?"

"Yeah, it is."

"Sure?"

"Stop asking me if I'm sure."

"Okay, fine, sorry. So I guess we…hide?"

To Dean's surprise, Sam shook his head. "Actually, I don't think so. I don't think that would go over well with these guys at all. I think we should just wait at the entrance to the alley and make the first move when we see them."

Dean shrugged. "Whatever. Just…one question, and don't bite my head off for it, okay?"

"Okay…" Sam said cautiously. "Go ahead."

"How sure are you that these guys are on our side?"

To his credit, Sam grasped his meaning immediately, and made no attempt at dissembling. But he was clearly unhappy with the implication that he and Dean could be here to save lives they would only end up taking later.

"They were human, Dean. I could tell. And that demon—whoever it was—was definitely looking to kill them."

"It's looked to kill a lot of people, and they weren't always good guys. The enemy of your enemy isn't always your friend, Sammy."

"I _know_ that. I'm not an idiot. But the bottom line is, a demon is coming here tonight. And if there's any chance at all that these guys _are_ on our side, we can't just throw them to the wolves. Right?"

Dean sighed. "Yeah, I know, I know."

"Glad to hear it," Sam said, sounding only a little disgruntled as he went to the entrance of the alley and leaned against the wall, folding his arms over his chest and going absolutely still.

Dean sighed again, deeper this time, and went to stand across from him.

"And now we wait."

XXX

"Are you sure it was tonight?"

"_Dean."_

"_Sam."_

Sam stared at him for a moment, then resolutely suppressed the twitching of his lips and said, "How long's it been?"

"Three hours."

"It has not."

Dean held out his wrist. Sam looked at his watch, then up at Dean, who wasn't—quite—smirking, and scowled. "Fine, let's go eat dinner. _Fast._ At the bar across the street. And then we're coming back."

"Unless it's not tonight," Dean muttered.

"You say something, Dean?"

"No, nothing at all."

"Really? 'Cause it sounded like…"

"Giving up, are you?"

Dean usually prided himself on taking things in stride, and now was no different. Like Sam, he reacted almost instantly to the strange voice, raising his gun and turning to point it at the person who had spoken.

He'd barely gotten turned halfway around before the gun was plucked, almost delicately, from his hand by the person who had slipped up, smoke-like, to grab him. Held firmly against the person behind him, something cold and metal and razor-sharp to his throat, he felt as if a block of ice had dropped into his stomach—a feeling that was not remotely helped by the sight of Sam being held the same way, with a gun to his head.

And just like that, they'd gone from being the hunters to being the hunted.

"Don't move, Sam," Dean said through gritted teeth, trying not to let his throat flex as he spoke.

"Yeah, I got that," Sam snapped, clearly goaded, and as serious as the situation was looking, Dean had to stifle a smirk.

But all inclination in that direction disappeared abruptly when the blade came close enough to brush his skin.

"I think it would be good if you told us why you were waiting here," said the guy at Dean's back. His voice, whoever he was, was as cool and calm as if he was strolling down a well-lit street, almost conversational.

"If you want him to answer, Nik, you should probably at least move the sword far enough that he won't slit his own throat trying," said the guy holding Sam. "Just a thought."

"We were waiting for you," Sam said before Nik could answer.

"Oh. Well, I don't like the sound of that," the other guy—who would be Cal—said.

"No, we don't want to hurt you," Sam said quickly, his eyes as fixed on Nik's sword as Dean's were on Cal's trigger finger. "We came to warn you."

Cal rolled his eyes. "Oh, yay, something new. Okay, fine, who's the warning from?" he asked, sounding utterly bored at the thought. "Kin? Puck? Employer? 'Cause I gotta say, I can only hear 'Stop nosing into things that aren't your business' so many times before it just stops scaring me."

"It scared you before?" Nik asked lightly. "For shame, little brother."

"Oh, shut up, I was being sarcastic and you know it," Cal snapped. "Okay, guys, at the risk of sounding like someone out of a Bourne movie—who sent you?"

"No one," Sam answered instantly. "It's not that kind of warning. We came on our own."

"Why?" Cal asked, sounding confused. "We don't know you, do we?"

"No, and actually, we have no idea who you are, either," Sam said, still talking quickly, as if afraid Dean would try to interject and do himself serious injury.

As if. The kid obviously couldn't tell how _sharp_ Niko's sword was.

"Look," Sam continued, sounding a little desperate now, probably because of the look on Dean's face. "This is a really bad place for us to be having this conversation. Tonight especially. We need to go somewhere—anywhere. Even that bar would be fine. And then, I swear, we'll tell you everything."

Dean raised his eyebrows, but he really wasn't in a position to do much else other than watch while Cal's eyebrows knitted together in thought.

"Whaddya think, Nik?"

Nik didn't move for a moment, but then he seemed to come to some sudden decision. Before Dean comprehended it, the blade left his throat and slid into its sheath with a hiss. The gun in Cal's hand, too, disappeared, and Sam and Dean moved toward each other at the same time, both seeking to put some distance between themselves and their temporary captors.

Cal, meanwhile, moved past them to join Nik, and for a few moments the four men studied each other in silence. Then Nik asked, "What are your names?"

He sounded completely implacable, as if prepared to wait all night for an answer to his question. Dean hesitated, then shrugged. "I'm Dean," he said, relishing the ability to speak again. "This is Sam."

Nik nodded. "Well, Dean, Sam, my name is Niko, and my grammatically challenged brother is Cal, who is, by the way, the only person to call me Nik." As he spoke, he bent to retrieve Dean's gun and tucked it into his coat. "Now," he continued as he straightened. "Shall we go?"

**TBC**


	3. Bar Chat

Chapter 2

The bar was packed, as bars are wont to be on Friday nights, and Dean felt himself relax slightly as he, Sam and their two new friends—_ha _—stepped inside. Here was a place he was at home in, a place he understood, and today had been weird enough that he'd really, really needed something he understood, even if he hadn't realized it until now.

Beside him, Sam, too, seemed less jittery than he'd been in the alley. But Cal seemed to be the opposite as his eyes swept the room and he murmured, almost to himself, "Crowded." Dean saw his hand twitch, as if longing to reach for the gun in his jacket.

"If you can't overcome the obstacle of a few superfluous people in a fight, then I've taught you nothing," Niko replied. He looked calm, at his ease—but then again, Dean was beginning to think Niko would be at his ease in the midst of thermonuclear war.

At his words, careless as they seemed, Cal, too, seemed to relax, and by the time they reached the bar he was no longer trying to pull out concealed firearms.

"Get me a beer," Dean called down to the barkeeper.

"Make it two," Sam added. He looked at Cal and Niko, but Cal shook his head and Niko said nothing at all.

"What, you guys don't drink?" Dean asked. "How do you have any fun?"

Niko fixed him with a stare that for some reason sent a chill down his spine. "We work," he said.

"Uh…okay…well, that's…thrilling."

"Thank you for your endorsement. Cal, go order me a salad, no dressing."

"Living on the edge as always, big brother," Cal said, rolling his eyes. "Don't do anything exciting while I'm gone."

"I'm going to get some food, too," Sam said, standing. "Dean, want anything?"

"Yeah, a burger. With everything. And onion rings. And potato skins."

"Pig."

"Extra onions!"

"Yeah, yeah, great…" Sam muttered, sliding through a small gap in the crowd and leaving Dean and Niko alone.

Which, as far as Dean was concerned, couldn't possibly lead to anything good.

Niko didn't seem too interested in actually hurting him, though. He just sat back in his chair and studied him, his gaze cool, unassuming, and somehow very, very disconcerting.

It was also very, very annoying, but Dean would be damned if he would be the first to break the silence. Unfortunately, Niko didn't seem capable of feeling anything remotely like discomfort, and so he made no attempt to break the silence and Dean was forced to sit back and just let the awkwardness wash over him.

And Niko just kept…staring. He didn't look remotely angry, but Dean could feel a definite chill emanating from him all the same. Dean kept expecting him to say something—anything—but the silence dragged on and on, until finally it was broken, not by Niko finally speaking, but by Sam returning to the table, precariously balancing two loaded plates and a plastic take-out box of salad.

"Cal's still waiting for his order," he said as he set it all down, chuckling slightly at the way Dean looked askance at his salad. "It's for me, Dean."

"Clearly. Did you get, like, wheatgrass juice or something to go with it?"

"Yeah, and tomorrow I'm going to get up before dawn, put on my purple velour jogging suit and take a walk around the block."

"Oh, God, mental image begone."

Throughout this entire exchange, Niko's expression hadn't changed, and it stayed exactly the same until Cal joined them with a giant platter of what looked like every fried item on the menu and a considerably tinier salad.

"Cal, you are determined to test the boundaries of your arteries. They are going to get tired of it eventually, you do realize that."

"No, I don't. Who know? Maybe fried food has no affect on me and I can eat this kind of food five times a day for another seventy years without any consequences. You don't know."

Cal spoke lightly, jokingly, but for some reason Niko seemed to take offense, if the way he reached out and flicked the side of Cal's head, hard enough to elicit a wince, was any indication. "Be quiet, Cal," he advised.

Cal fished a potato skin out of the mess and took a bite of it, then asked around the mouthful, "But I thought this was a talking kind of dinner."

"It is, for the grown-ups, not for little boys who can't swallow before they speak."

Cal grinned, gave an exaggerated swallow, then deliberately turned his back on Niko to Sam and Dean. "So which one of us were you planning to attack? Or were you going to take out both of us at once?" he asked conversationally, taking another bite.

Dean turned to Sam at the question and said, "Nice going, Sammy. 'Yeah, I think we should just make ourselves obvious instead of hiding.' Seems to me it all turned out the same anyway."

"We would have found you anyway. You don't look like the types that could hide effectively. Now answer my brother's question, please. Which one of us was your target?"

"Suspicious son of a bitch, aren't you?" Dean asked, and Niko's eyes narrowed slightly, his hand drifting almost casually toward his concealed weapon.

"We weren't trying to hurt either of you, for the thousandth time," Sam interjected quickly. "Look, we really were coming to warn you, okay? If we hadn't turned up at the alley tonight someone _was_ going to attack you guys—a demon, and it would have succeeded, too."

Niko raised one eyebrow, and Cal's hand froze over his plate.

"I think perhaps it would be best if you went back to the beginning," Niko said quietly.

"Uh…well, you're not gonna believe it," Sam warned him.

"You might be surprised."

"Yesterday I had a vision of a demon attacking you guys and killing you tonight in that alley."

Dead silence fell over the table in the wake of these words, while Dean stared at his brother as if unsure whether to laugh or scream.

Then Cal shrugged slightly and began shoveling his food into his mouth again, and Niko broke the silence by saying calmly, "I've never heard of psychic knowledge manifesting as visions before. You are psychic, then?"

Dean stared at him for a long moment, then turned to Sam and asked, "Dude, what kind of people did you get us involved with?"

Sam made a "Don't look at me" sort of gesture and said, "Hey, man, you know how it works."

"Yeah, yeah, you see, we go, I know, I know," Dean said with a sigh. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." He sighed, then shifted his glare to Niko and Cal. "Okay, you know what, enough. Who the hell are you guys?"

Niko took a very small bite of his salad, his cool gaze still fixed on the Winchesters. "I think it may be only polite for you to answer that question first, you two being the ones who started this."

"Hey, we saved your life, man!"

"I have yet to see proof of that."

"Well, yeah, you wouldn't seeing as we _prevented the proof from happening!"_

"You know," Niko said, taking another small bite, "we could have this sort of circular argument for hours, and while that would be sure and certain entertainment, I really don't have the time. What I do have is nine swords, your gun, and the ability to kill you with twelve different things within reach on this table. If I were you, I would begin explaining now."

Dean met his gaze for a moment, then flicked his glance to Sam and murmured, "What do you think?"

Sam shrugged. "Your call, man."

"Gee, thanks, Sammy," Dean replied acidly. "All right, God, fine, I'll give you a little. Not a lot, but enough." He paused for a moment, then shook his head a little and plunged right in. "Okay, first of all, Sam and I are brothers. Our last name's Winchester. Our dad was John Winchester, but you won't find any of those names on the books, chances are. He was a hunter, and so are we."

"What, like deer?" Cal asked, interrupting as he started in on a stuffed pepper.

"You mean…wait, you don't _know?_ You know all this other stuff, but not about hunters? SAM!"

"Dean, stop acting like this is my fault."

"Whatever. Okay, well, to put it simply, hunting is a job, pure and simple—well, except for the part where we don't get paid. We go around the country hunting ghosts and monsters and demons and crap like that, and we kill them. There's kind of a network of us, but Sammy here is special. Or at least, he's the only psychic hunter we know of. And like he said, yesterday he had a vision of a demon attacking you guys, and…here we are."

"Hm," Niko said thoughtfully. "And did you happen to see anything that would indicate why this demon would attack us, or if it was simply random?"

"It wasn't random, I know that, but…no," Sam said. "Nothing."

"Well, that's useful," Cal said with a snort.

"Be nice, Cal," Niko said absently. "You said that the attack succeeded. You actually saw us die?"

"Well…no, actually. Just…you," Sam said apologetically.

Cal sat up straight immediately, abandoning the food he'd had halfway to his mouth. _"What?"_ he asked. "And you're just mentioning this now?"

"You didn't ask before," Dean said, irritated.

"Are you kidding me with this? You see my brother get killed, and 'You never asked' is the best you can do? And you call yourselves the good guys? What else did you see? Was Niko the only one it went after?"

Sam answered this time. "I think so, yeah. Or maybe it was going to kill you after. I don't know. If it _did_ do that, I got pulled out before it happened. But…I got the feeling it was just you, Niko. You have any idea why a demon would have it in for you?"

Cal's expression of angry incredulity vanished, and he snorted. "That'd be a pretty impressive list. The entire supernatural world hates both of us."

"True," Niko said, completely unruffled by the fact that a demon could easily have killed him in the very alley he'd been standing in not half an hour before. "However, I've never actually seen a demon in person, so if they are after me, the vendetta isn't personal, unless they are after revenge for someone else."

"Well, far as I know, demons aren't really much for caring about anyone but themselves, but you never know, they could surprise us," Dean said. "Okay, so, fine, there are lots of possibilities. That's okay, all we have to do is narrow it down and then hopefully we can summon the demon and exorcise it…"

Niko sat perfectly still for a moment, fingers laced together, his chin resting on them as he thought. Then, as if arriving at a sudden decision, he sat up and said briskly, "No, I don't think so."

"You don't think…what?" Dean asked, bewildered.

"I don't think we'll be working together on this," Niko said simply. "Thank you for your warning. Cal and I will be sure to watch our backs. I'm sorry you drove here just to turn around and leave again, but rest assured that you did put us on our guard." As he spoke, he pulled out Dean's gun and set it carefully on the table, and with a look from his brother Cal did the same with Sam's. As Sam reached out to take it, his hand brushed Cal's, and Cal froze—but only for a moment, one so short that it went unnoticed even by Niko.

"Wait, that's _it?"_ Dean asked incredulously. "We tell you there's a deadly creature out to kill you, and you send us out the door?"

"Deadly creatures are always out t kill me," Niko said implacably. "I assure you, I'm quite adept at killing them. And I did apologize. I don't often do that."

"He is, and he doesn't," Cal added helpfully.

"Yeah, but you said you've never seen a demon before. Even if you're as good as you say, how can you expect to survive your first encounter with one if Sam actually saw it kill you? His visions are never wrong, you know."

"I'll take your word for that if you take mine for it that I'll be fine. Come on, Cal."

"Nik, are you—?"

"Yes, Cal, I am," Niko said, but not angrily. In fact, his gaze only seemed to soften at the half-asked question. "Come on, since you've been such a good boy, we can get ice cream on the way home."

"Really?"

"No."

And Sam and Dean could only watch as the man they'd driven five hundred miles to save walked out the door without them.

"Dude, New Yorkers are idiots," Dean fumed, reaching over for a swig of Sam's beer, his own having disappeared long ago.

Sam sighed woefully as he watched his chance at drunken bliss vanish down his brother's throat. "Yeah, sure, they're idiots. Or they can take care of themselves."

"Against demons. Man, we can barely defend against them _now_, and we've been dealing with them for a year! And you really think they can kill one on their own the first time they meet it?"

"I don't know," Sam said distantly, his eyes on the door the brothers had disappeared through. "Maybe."

His musing was cut short when Dean let out a sudden curse. "And they left us to pick up the tab, too! Aw, _man!"_

XXX

"So you gonna tell me why you were so desperate to get far, far away from those guys?" Cal asked, hands stuffed in his pockets as he and Niko walked down the street toward their apartment. He sounded casual, but the look he gave Niko was anything but. Sam and Dean might not have noticed that desperation in the quick way Niko had bitten off his words back in the bar, but Cal had, and it concerned him.

"I would think it was obvious," Niko replied instantly, taking Cal—who had expected at least an attempt at denial—aback.

"Well, pretend I'm dumb, then."

"That won't be much of a stretch."

"Ha ha," Cal said flatly. "So why?"

"Those men are paranormal hunters, Cal," Niko said, as if it were obvious—and now that he said it, it was. "They hunt ghosts, monsters—anything not one hundred percent living human. So yes, I would like to keep you as far away from them as possible."

Cal looked sideways at him, then said reluctantly, "Yeah, I can understand that, but…well, uh, what would you say if I told you something that might…uh…change your mind?"

"What do you mean?" Niko asked, looking very skeptical at the idea that anything could change his mind. Cal was silent, and he repeated dangerously, _"What_, Cal?"

"They…uh…they smelled like you."

**TBC**


	4. Dads or Brothers?

Chapter 3

"_Niko, what's a dad?"_

_Niko had been drying the plates he and Cal had used for dinner, but at the question he froze for a moment and then dropped the rag in the sink and turned to look at his brother. "What?"_

"_What's a dad?" Cal repeated, his eyes wide and innocent as he studied Niko over the Fig Newton he was munching on for dessert. "I heard Mikey say today at recess that his dad was taking him to a baseball game. He said his dad is the coolest ever and they're going to have so much fun together, and then everyone else started saying _their _dad was the coolest ever. But _you're_ the coolest ever, and you take me places, so does that mean a dad's like a brother?"_

_Niko swallowed hard and abandoned the dishes to go and crouch down in front of Cal. "No, Cal. A dad isn't supposed to be like a brother at all."_

_Cal cocked his head to the side a little and said in a puzzled voice, "But Mikey's dad does the same things you do, and you're my brother."_

_Niko sighed. "I know, but I don't do what a brother is supposed to do." _

_The implication that Niko was doing something wrong made Cal's eyes go wide. "Well, what _is_ a brother supposed to do?"_

_Niko paused, then stood up to pull a chair over next to Cal's and dropped into it."A big brother, like what I am, I supposed to play with you—"_

"_You do play with me, all the time."_

"_Yes, but I'm also supposed to complain about playing with you to all my friends, and want to get away from you all the time, and yell at you for coming into my room. I'm supposed to be bothered by you and tell you to leave me alone."_

"_Oh. You're right. You don't do any of that, but that's okay, 'cause I don't think I'd like that."_

"_Me either, kiddo."_

"_What's a dad supposed to do, then?"_

"_A dad is supposed to take care of you. He's supposed to make you breakfast and lunch and dinner, and take you to the park and the movies, and make you feel better when you're sad." Niko knew—he'd seen it on TV back when the cable still worked._

"_But you do all that."_

"_I know."_

"_So you're like my dad."_

_Niko felt a small smile on his lips. "Yes, in a manner of speaking. But most families aren't like us."_

"_We're doing it wrong?" Cal asked, sounding suddenly worried._

_Niko actually laughed at that—he couldn't help it—and reached out to ruffle Cal's hair. "No, Cal, you and me, at least, are doing it exactly right."_

"_I'm confused now."_

"_I know. It's confusing."_

"_But if everyone has a dad, then where's ours?"  
_

_Niko decided right then that the time had come to dodge the question and lighten the moment, and he did so by chuckling, ruffling Cal's hair again, and murmuring, "I should've known you were going to ask me all these questions one day. But that's one question I can't answer."_

Because I don't know where my dad is, and I don't ever want you to know where yours is either.

"_Now, all this talk of playing has made me want to go to the park. Why don't you go get your jacket so we can have some time there before it gets dark?"_

_Cal grinned happily, all talk of dads forgotten in the wake of the glorious prospect of going out. "Okay!" he said excitedly, and dashed off in a whirlwind of little arms and legs._

_Niko didn't allow his smile to falter until Cal was gone, but once he was alone, it vanished completely and he sighed inwardly as he turned back to finish drying the dishes._

_All he could think was how very sad it was that a five-year-old boy had never heard the word "dad."_

XXX

"Excuse me?"

"They smell like you. I mean, not like you've been around them and their scent has rubbed off on you. More like…like how we smell like Sophia."

He said it with a sudden sense of discovery, and Niko raised one eyebrow. "You can detect such things?"

"I don't know," Cal replied. "I've never been able to before. Like I can't tell that Mrs. King is George's mother by smelling her. Or I didn't used to be able to. Maybe it sprang up overnight. Or maybe it was triggered when we met them. Or maybe it's just unique with you. I don't know."

"How long have you realized this?"

"About five minutes—since I gave Sam back his gun—but something about them had been bugging me since we met them, and I'm pretty sure that's what it was."

"So…you think that my father…"

"Is John Winchester. Maybe. I don't know, it's possible, right?"

"I suppose," Niko said slowly. "We always assumed he was Rom, but he doesn't have to be. Perhaps one of Sophia's clients resulted in an accidental pregnancy."

"You're taking this awfully well," Cal said carefully. "What are you thinking right now?"

"I'm wondering why you thought this would change my mind about those two," Niko said instantly.

Cal's mouth dropped open. "Nik, they could be your brothers."

"I already have a brother. I don't need any more."

Cal smiled slightly. "That's sweet, but don't you even want to find out for sure?"

"There's no way to find out for sure, unless we get a blood test, and I don't see them being any more willing to do that than I am. Besides, what would it change?"

"Everything. You could have a family, Nik!"

"I told you, I already do. I have you, Cal, and I don't need anyone else. Besides, they are not my family, no matter what their DNA says. They are hunters, and as hunters, they are a _threat_ to my family. I have no desire to forge any kind of relationship with them."

"But—"

Niko knew, from the hesitancy with which Cal spoke the word and the look in his eyes, where the sentence was going, and cut him off instantly. "No, Cal. Thank you for giving me the option, but no."

Because he knew what Cal had been about to say, and he didn't want to hear it.

Cal looked like he still wanted to pursue the matter, but to Niko's relief he dropped it. "Fine, then let's talk about the demon that's trying to kill you."

"What of it?"

"Well, what're we gonna do about it?"

"We'll do what we do best: we'll kill it."

Cal grimaced. "Yeah, great. So you know how to find it?"

"Of course not. However, we have one advantage. We know it will be coming after me, and that it is looking to do so tonight. Therefore we will go home, where we are safer and have the home court advantage—"

"Did you just make a sports reference?"

"—And I will teach you how to fight a demon. Then we will simply be vigilant, as I told Sam and Dean we would."

Cal sighed. "You're a stubborn bastard, you know that?"

"Yes," Niko replied simply. "I know."

That had been yesterday.

Today, Niko felt like he didn't know anything at all.

XXX

_I'm not going to be here forever._

Those had been the words that had gone unsaid in their conversation the night before, and they were stuck in Niko's head.

_I'm not going to be here forever._

He wished now that he'd let Cal say it. If he'd let Cal say it then he could have argued. He could have fought his brother on it. He could have said_ You will never leave me_ so often and with such conviction that he would have made it true.

_I'm not going to be here forever._

He could have falsified those words through sheer willpower if he'd only acknowledged them. But he hadn't. He'd ignored them.

He'd ignored them, and now Cal was gone.

**TBC**

* * *

_Author's Note: I know it's short, but look at how fast it came out! (Although I'm warning you now, don't expect _that_ to ever happen again.)_


	5. Gone

Chapter 4

"We shouldn't help people anymore."

Sam paused in the action of packing up his bag and turned to raise an eyebrow at Dean's pronouncement. He didn't say anything, though, and predictably Dean replied to his expression alone.

"I'm serious. When was the last time doing anyone a favor did us any good? No, really," he went on when Sam opened his mouth. "Think about it. We get yelled at. We get beat up. We get arrested. But we never get anything good out of it."

"Dean, you do realize that everything we do helps people," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, but we hardly ever have to meet them. Or we didn't used to. But it seems like lately every case we take there's someone _there_, and they're never looking to thank us, for some reason. I just think it'd be easier if we stopped trying to tell people what's really going on."

Sam studied his brother as Dean turned back to his packing. "This is really bugging you, isn't it?" he asked finally.

He was surprised at the abruptness with which Dean turned back to face him. "Well, yeah," he snapped. "Why shouldn't it? We came all the way here to warn him, to _help_ him, and he threw it back in our faces. This whole trip was completely pointless." He threw his jeans in his bag and zipped it shut so violently that he broke the zipper, and the resulting curses were more colorful than the time the ghost they'd been hunting had shot him in the leg with his own gun.

"Jeez, man, what is wrong with you?" Sam asked, watching incredulously as Dean threw the broken part of the zipper aside and began to yank the bag closed. "We've run into this before. A lot. All the time, actually. And you've never acted like this."

Dean glared witheringly at him and was almost to answer when their conversation was interrupted by a firm knock on the door. Dean raised an eyebrow and said, "Thought room service cleaned up after people leave." When Sam just shrugged, Dean mirrored the action and went to open the door—and froze. After a few moments, though, he shifted, almost unconsciously, into a more aggressive stance, crossing his arms over his chest, his voice laced with sarcasm as he said, "Well, you're just about the most masculine maid who's ever come to our door—and we've seen some manly chicks in our time."

Niko simply watched him, his gaze perfectly level, and said, "I'm sure your insults are better when you've had the chance to think them out, but I don't have time for you to come up with more. I—"

"Well, that's fine, 'cause we don't really have time to talk, either. We're leaving town tonight. See, the guy we drove eight hours to save decided he didn't want us here, so we're gonna have to drive all night to make up the time, and maybe if we drive fast enough no one will die from our little detour. But that's only if we leave soon, so—" Dean gave an exaggerated wave and started to turn back to his bag.

"I need your help."

Once again, Dean froze. Without turning around he said mildly, "What happened to you being badass enough to handle it yourself? Y'know, even though you've never even seen a demon before."

"Dean, stop being an ass," Sam snapped, apparently losing patience. "He's here, isn't he? Do you want to come in?" he asked Niko more gently.

Dean still wasn't looking, but he assumed Niko nodded, since the door closed a second or two later.

"So…" Sam said slowly, awkwardly. "Uh…what's the problem?"

"I need to know everything you can tell me about your demon."

"Okay, first of all," Dean said, finally facing Niko, who was still standing by the door, "it's not _our_ demon. We didn't _make_ the damn thing. And second of all—are you freakin' _kidding_ me?"

"Dean—"

"He said he didn't want to know, Sam! He didn't want to work with us on this, and then he left. And now he's done a complete one-eighty in less than two hours, and you want us to trust him?"

"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid? What could he possibly get out of selling us out to a demon? What would a demon even _want_ with us? We don't have the Colt anymore—they all know that. So unless it's Meg again—actually, even if it _is_ Meg again—it doesn't make any sense that they'd even know we're here, much less care."

Dean glared at him for a second, then threw up his hands and said, "Fine, whatever. You've already made up your mind. But you—" And now he looked at Niko. "—have to tell us why you want to know all of the sudden."

"It took Cal," Niko said simply, without so much as a tremble in his voice. "It was never after me. After we got home, almost the moment he went to his room, it took him. He's gone. And we've wasted enough time."

XXX

"I can't believe you don't want to help him."

Dean glanced back at the closed door of their room, where they'd left Niko sitting, still as a stone, on Sam's bed, then turned back to Sam and said, "I can't believe you _do_ want to help him. This whole thing reeks, man."

"Yeah, y'know, you keep saying that, and every time you do it makes less sense."

"I don't think so."

"_Why?"_

"Well, for one thing, his timing, like I already explained to you. And then there's his attitude."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I mean…okay, look, if a demon took me out of the motel room while you were in…I don't know, in the bathroom or something…what would you do?"

"Panic," Sam said without cracking a smile. "And then start busting heads for information."

"Exactly. But this guy's not even rattled. He never even flinched when he told us what'd happened."

"That doesn't really mean anything. Everyone reacts differently to this kind of thing. A lot of people shut down." He didn't have to add the "You'd know that better than anyone." From Dean's glare he heard it loud and clear anyway. Sam sighed. "Look, man. You know as well as I do that if there's a chance this kid's in trouble, we gotta help him."

Dean stared him in the eyes for a second, then looked away and muttered, "Yeah, I know. But I don't have to like it. I just…I have a bad feeling about this one, Sammy. And before you ask, I don't know why. Let's just…get this over with, huh?"

XXX

"We'd just gotten home, after we left the bar. Cal said that he was tired, and was going to go to bed. Laziness is his natural state, and we'd had a…disagreement…on the way home, so all in all, I thought nothing of it. He went to his room, and I went to scrounge up a meal that wouldn't have me dead in a barroom floor. And then I heard Cal yell. He sounded…irritable. Not afraid. I couldn't have been five seconds in getting to his room. He was already gone."

Niko related the story calmly, without a trace of feeling whatsoever. But he also did it with a knife in his hand, which whirled through the air without ceasing the entire time he was speaking. Niko would toss it into the air, so high that it would come within a hair's breadth—literally—of the ceiling, then catch it in the same hand without so much as glancing upward. It was…disconcerting, the utter perfection of his knifework. Dean knew at a glance that there was no way in hell he'd ever be able to rival it, which did not improve his mood and was perhaps the reason his next words were so sharp.

"And you think it was a demon because…?"

"I found sulfur on the windowsill, and on the floor next to his bed," Niko said, curling his fingers briefly around the handle of his blade before sending it soaring upward again. "I believe that's a common sign?"

"You'd be right," Sam agreed. "What else do you know about demons?"

"I know how to summon them. I know how to kill them. I don't know why this particular one wanted Cal or how to find them. I need you for that."

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance, and after a moment Sam said gently, "Niko, you have to understand that me and Dean—we don't usually hunt demons. I mean, we've killed them—or exorcised them, at least—but they always come after us, not the other way around. So…if we're gonna be able to help you, we're gonna need more."

"And by 'more' you mean…?"

"We need you to tell us whatever it is you're holding back," Dean said bluntly.

XXX

Niko caught the knife again and kept hold of it this time, twirling it in long fingers as he studied Dean impassively. Dean stared right back at him with admirable steadiness, while Sam's eyes flicked uncertainly between them.

"What makes you think I'm withholding anything?" Niko asked carefully, his mind racing even as he kept his face carefully expressionless.

"Don't play games with me. I'm not in the mood. You do know why this demon took Cal—or you at least have an idea. My guess is it's the same thing that made you ditch us at the bar. What are you hiding?"

Niko stroked the blade of the knife, taking comfort in the reassuring feeling of cold steel under his fingers, while he considered.

One the one hand, this had been exactly what he'd been hoping to avoid when he'd refused Sam and Dean's help in the bar. The absolute last thing he wanted or needed was another danger to his brother, one more party wanting to hunt him down. And he could tell, even having only known them for less than a day, that these men would be dangerous enemies. Mere gnats compared to the Auphe, but still dangerous, and they had enough danger to deal with already.

On the other hand—well, they were a resource, and at this point, his only resource. They couldn't work without information any more than he could have if the situation were reversed. And he wouldn't have to tell them everything—he would skip Cal's lineage entirely. It wasn't important anyway.

Besides—he gripped his knife briefly—if they showed any sign of becoming a danger, he would make sure they didn't remain one for long. In happier times, the clarity of that thought would have made his stomach churn.

But these were not happier times, and Niko had long since come to terms with the fact that for Cal, he was capable of literally anything.

XXX

Sam was worried. He hadn't been before, not even when Niko had demonstrated those incredible skills of his. But that had been before Dean started pushing his luck, and now the look Niko was giving Dean did not bode well for his future.

Yep, definitely time to step in.

"Niko we want to help you, we really do." He could feel Dena's eyes boring into the side of his head, and ignored it. "But we need you to help us, too. Please?"

Niko's eyes shifted to him, and for a moment his gaze remained hard and cold. But then he softened—slightly—and slowly uncurled his hand from his weapon.

"He has an…ability," Niko said, choosing his words with obvious care. "It's developed recently, through a series of events I'd rather not relate. He can open…portals."

"…Portals."

Niko waved a hand impatiently. "He calls them gates. He has almost no practice with them—they seem to come a great deal from panic, from an instinct to escape."

"And these...gates…they can take him anywhere?"

Niko shook his head. "I'm not sure. There may be—that is to say, there probably are—limits. As I said, it's a recent ability. He's only done it intentionally once."

Sam glanced at Dean. "But…why would the demons want Cal for that? They seem to get around well enough on their own."

Dean shrugged. "I dunno. You're right, that doesn't make much…" He trailed off, his eyes going out of focus as the thought struck him. "Unless…"

Sam, staring at him, waited for him to explain—only he didn't end up having to, because seconds later Sam realized the same thing his brother had.

Slowly, Sam sat sown on the bed, staring up at Dean.

"Oh, God."

XXX

Cal limped toward consciousness with the same reluctance that he usually showed toward waking up. The only difference was that this time he didn't think Niko would entirely condemn him for it. After all, Niko had always been endlessly sympathetic when he was truly, truly in pain—which he definitely was now.

Groaning softly, he turned on his side, and immediately had to fight down the bile rising in his throat. With another groan he gave up and flopped onto his back again, half-hoping that the movement would send him spinning off into unconsciousness again.

It didn't.

After lying there feeling miserable for a while—probably a long while—the pain abated enough for him to chance opening his eyes a sliver, enough to look around, at least as much as he could without moving his head.

His first impression was that this place felt eerily familiar—and a moment later he realized, with a sinking feeling, why.

_Aw, man…why here, of all the goddamn places on the planet?_

Because he'd been here before. In fact, it held some of his worst memories, memories of a huge, horrible body, writing gray filaments, disembodied hands and Niko disappearing before his eyes.

A place that few would go to voluntarily, even now, with its occupant dead.

And okay, so he wasn't in the exact same cavern—that one was buried under tons of earth and rock, and good riddance—but it was _close._ And that just sucked.

Cal was about to try and gather the courage to try and sit up when a sound echoed through the cavern. It wasn't loud, just a kind of shuffle, the sound of rock being shifted ever so slightly, and then footsteps from someone who wasn't bothering to be quiet. He debated craning his neck to see who was coming, but after a moment he decided it wasn't worth it and simply lay back to wait and listen as the steps came closer.

After a minute or two, the footsteps stopped. With an inward sigh, Cal forced his eyes open again and carefully rolled his head around until they lit on a person standing about a foot away, staring down at him.

It was a woman. A really, really, insanely hot woman, hot in a way that was exactly Cal's type.

He could almost hear Niko's snort—_You mean bipedal?_—and had to fight back an insane urge to laugh.

"Now, you mind telling me," he drawled instead, "what a girl like you is doing in a place like this?"

She smiled, teeth shocking white against her almond-colored skin. It wasn't a friendly smile, more reminiscent of a shark's grin than anything, and whatever desire may have been in danger of clouding Cal's mind vanished in an instant.

"Following orders." She crouched down next to him. "I have to take some dumb kid to his least favorite place, which is, unfortunately for me, also the most disgusting place in New York City." The smile reappeared, twice as disturbing, and she reached out to pat his cheek. "But hey, don't worry about little ol' me. Even this job ain't without perks. See, if you don't help me, I get to torture you. A lot." Her hand squeezed, hard, on his chin, black-painted nails digging in and drawing blood. "Let's get started, shall we?"


	6. WWND?

Chapter 5

"This is not optimal."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You really have to stop watching TV," he said irritably. "Just say 'this sucks' like a normal person, would ya?"

"This sucks," Sam repeated, in a tone identical to Dean's.

"Or, ya know, blows. Stinks like a giant mound of…"

"It's bad," Sam cut him off. "God, can you imagine if they actually pulled it off?"

"I don't really want to, actually. I get enough demons right now, thanks."

"Well, maybe we're wrong. Maybe that's not what they want at all."

"Great. What's your explanation, then?" Dean snapped, pacing the space at the end of the beds as he spoke. "I just can't believe it took us this long to figure it out. Oh, man, this is _really_ bad, Sammy."

"We've had bad before."

"This is worse," Dean replied without missing a beat, and, for no apparent reason—at least to Niko—finally cracked a smile. It didn't last long, though—a moment later he ran a hand over his face and sighed. "What are we gonna do?"

Niko decided it was time to speak up. He'd never in his life felt lost in a conversation, and he didn't like it. "I get the feeling you two have figured out why Cal was taken." He kept his voice mild, suppressing the desire to scream with frustration, an ability honed by long practice.

"Uh…yeah. I think so. You're not gonna like it."

Niko's hand twitched, but he managed to keep it away from his knife. "Tell me."

Dean heaved another sigh and sat down on the bed next to Sam. "Okay, here's the thing. It goes pretty much without saying that demons live in hell, right?"

"I could argue the point, but now isn't the time," Niko replied.

"Uh…okay. Well, anyway, the reason that we see so few of them is that it's not easy for them to get out. It's why they're so scared of being exorcised—it's not like they can just jump right back up here. So the demons just come in trickles, and we can keep them from taking over. But if they had an easy route up…"

Niko had seen where this was going almost from the first sentence, and by the time Dean finished he'd almost stopped listening, his mind racing.

"How long would the gate have to be open?"

"Uh…excuse me?" Sam said, raising his eyebrows at Dean.

"How long would it take for all of them to get through?"

"I…er…I don't know. Depends on if they do it all at once. They'll probably all want to get out at the same time, as quickly as possible. But they also might decide to keep their escape…y'know…quiet, and just keep Cal to have him open a gate whenever they want. But since demons aren't really known for their restraint it'll probably be the first one, so…I dunno. A while, probably."

"Hmm. And would they need to go to a certain place?"

"I don't think so," Sam said, looking slightly alarmed now. "I think they can come up anywhere."

"All right. And what are their methods? What would they do to get his help?" He thought he knew, but he felt an odd need to hear it spoken.

Sure enough, Sam looked immediately uncomfortable, looking at Dean in a blatant plea for help. Dean obliged, reluctantly.

"Torture, probably," he said apologetically. "Physical and mental. They're good at both."

Niko nodded slowly, then abruptly reached into his pocket for his phone.

"Excuse me. I need to make a call."

XXX

Cal hurt.

This was nothing new—he'd felt pain before, and really, this was no different. In fact, compared to having a sword sticking out of him, this was a trip to the ballpark—which was good, because he needed to be able to think, and he'd noticed in the past that writing in pain often seriously hindered that process.

And Niko would say that his thinking process was hindered enough already, without any outside help.

The girl—Cal noticed that she hadn't gotten any less hot while she was wailing on him—put her hands on her hips and actually managed to look a little put out.

"Dude, why do you have to make this so difficult for yourself? Not that I'm not having fun and all, and I have about a thousand more ways of hurting you before I even draw first blood, but I'd think you'd be at least a little inclined toward self-preservation."

Cal squinted up at her, every inch of him aching, and murmured, "Little girl know big words. Oog not understand."

"Well, then I'll simple things up for ya." She crouched down again and leaned in close. "Oog hurt much. Oog not see brother again. Oog help, or Oog die." Her sudden smile was blinding. "Get it?"

Cal stared up at her, sighed, tried not to wince—she may or may not have cracked a rib or two on that last kick—and said, "Yeah, yeah, I get it. But I haven't decided yet, so…break out them thumbscrews, I guess."

XXX

"Who do you think he's talking to?" Dean asked, looking through the open door at Niko.

Sam shrugged. "My guess is someone who can help him find Cal."

"Then why did he need us?" Dean huffed.

"Maybe this guy doesn't know much about demons."

"Yeah, maybe. But…" Dean was cut off when Niko dropped the phone and motioned to them. "Well, that was the shortest interrogation ever," Dean muttered as he followed Sam back inside.

"So?" Sam said neutrally, studying Niko's impassive face.

"He couldn't help me any more than you already have," Niko said shortly. "They're not in a motel or apartment in the Manhattan area, they haven't bought or rented a car, the GPS in Cal's cell phone is off, and he hasn't been checked in to a hospital or taken to the morgue. No disturbances have been reported to the police, aside from the usual drug-related crimes. Robin will dig deeper, but I don't expect him to find much more than that."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "And he found all that out…how?"

Niko looked levelly at him. "He had another phone while he talked to me."

Which made perfect sense to him, Sam was sure.

"Uh…yeah, okay," Dean said. "So what now, then?"

Niko looked at him, gaze still perfectly level. "Now I wait for Robin to call back in about ten minutes, and until then you tell me what would happen if Cal did what these demons asked of him."

XXX

_What would Niko do?_

It was kind of sad that Cal still based every major decision on that question. It probably said something about his mental health—something not good—but he continued to do it. So…WWND?

Cal huffed out a laugh, and the demon—because Cal knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, now that he had seen her eyes do that creepy black flashing thing, that she was a demon—looked surprised.

"Huh. Never figured I'd crack you so quickly. I should have expected it, with you walking such a fine line between sanity and the other option, but…huh. I'm a little disappointed."

"Well, wouldn't want to disappoint the lady, now, would I?" Cal asked the ceiling, before he rolled his eyes back toward her. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I haven't made up my mind yet."

_Stop antagonizing her, you fool_, he could almost hear Niko snap in his ear. But that order didn't fall under WWND, because antagonizing his captor was something Cal just _did_, without thinking about it, and he couldn't stop it any more than he could have stopped an avalanche.

"Okay, let me ask you a question: why do you think I haven't just gated out of here?" He didn't give her time to answer before he plowed on. "Because I _can't_ right now. I can't make it work. Probably because you _concussed_ me, you idiot. So even if I wanted to help you out—and you're not really giving me much of a reason to do that—I _couldn't._ Get it?"

"But you won't be concussed forever," the demon said reasonably, not even blinking. "I'll just stay away from your head for awhile. Next argument?"

Cal was silent.

_What would Niko do?_

XXX

The fact that an impossible number of people would die if Cal did what the demons wanted…really didn't bother Niko as much as it should have.

He didn't _want_ them to, of course. He was well aware of how many truly innocent people there were in addition to the scum of it, and no doubt they didn't deserve to die. And if demons began to overrun the world as a result of one of Cal's gates, then he and Niko would step up and do their parts to send those demons back to hell. But if they did that, it would mean Cal was _alive_, and once again, Niko had long since come to terms with sacrificing morals to keep Cal with him.

"Okay, I know you're gonna want to kill me for asking this," Dean said, "but we need to know so that we can plan for it. What are the chances Cal will agree to do this?"

Niko stared at him, for once unsure of how to respond, simply because if he'd said what he was thinking he probably would have had to kill Dean to stop Dean from killing him.

Because what he was thinking was, _I don't know. But I hope he does._

XXX

"Tell me something, Cal," the demon said, sounding so genuinely curious that for a second Cal was actually surprised. "Why don't you want to do this?"

"Oh, I don't know," Cal drawled. "Guess I just have a problem with your methods."

"Well, yeah, but I said I'd stop hurting you if you did what I wanted." Then a look of theatrical realization came to her face and she said, "Ooh. It's because of your brother, isn't it? You think he wouldn't want you to open a gate for me. Well, I'll let you in on a secret. It wouldn't surprise him."

Cal almost sighed audibly in relief. _Oh, thank God, _mental_ torture…_ And about the only thing in the world that this chick had no hope of shaking his belief in. Good—he could use the break to think more clearly.

He'd been coming to a slow, inescapable conclusion while the demon had been torturing him all this time, a conclusion about what Niko would want him to do in this situation: survive. That had been their goal for Cal's entire life, and they'd done less-than-desirable things to ensure that that goal would be attained. Granted, they'd never done anything on this scale before, but they'd never been in this kind of situation before.

He could almost hear Niko's voice. _Just get back home alive, and we'll deal with the consequences later. Together._

_Together..._

"Okay. I'll do it."

* * *

_Author's Note: Okay, I know Cal has to know the way to gate somewhere, but hey, I've changed worse. Just go with it. _


	7. The Great Escape

Chapter 6

The demon looked taken aback, and Cal realized belatedly that he must have cut her off mid-sentence. He hadn't really been listening, but evidently he'd interrupted abruptly enough that even she couldn't totally hide her surprise.

She recovered quickly, though, and said coolly, "Evidently we'll need to go over some rules about interruptions, but since you have something good to say I'll let it slide this time." She smiled, this time almost genuinely, and it seemed impossible that something so obviously evil could have such a beautiful smile. "So. You've just decided to let me have my way, for no apparent reason, and I'm supposed to believe that you're doing it purely out of the goodness of your heart?"

Cal snorted. "What goodness?" he asked, actually sincere for the first time. "I can assure you I'm doing this for completely selfish reasons. And how can helping you out be considered good anyways?"

"So…" the demon said, sitting down on a pile of rock and stretching leather-clad legs, her arms behind her head. "Enlighten me." When Cal raised an eyebrow at her, she rolled her eyes and said, "Humor me. We can't do anything until your head stops spinning, anyways, and I'm bored. I mean, I can start taking some slices out of your hide if you like, but I thought maybe you'd rather talk. Call me crazy."

"Actually," Cal said, already envisioning Niko's rather unenthusiastic reaction to his next words, "if it comes down to a choice between talking about my feelings or getting cut on for awhile, I'm pretty sure I'd choose the second one."

He felt a wash of surprise mixed with a shot of irritation when she laughed out loud, slapping her knee in evident delight. "You're one twisted kid, you know that? I almost wish we didn't have this torturer-victim kind of relationship going on. Otherwise I might get to like you."

"One of my life's goals."

"Well, since you're not gonna answer that question—lame, by the way—how about you tell me how long you think it'll take for you to be able to open my gate?"

"I look like a doctor to you?"

"Well, more than I do. Humans tend not to die from their injuries once I've gotten into them, so I don't really know what's fatal to them or how long things take to heal. Then again…"

"…I'm not exactly human. Yeah, yeah, like I haven't heard that before…" At the demon's deafening silence, Cal sighed. "Okay, fine, if you have to know—don't have a clue, lady. You didn't do too much damage, but…"

"Please, I barely touched you. If you're not badly hurt it's because I didn't want you to be, since I, y'know, need you and all. I have more control over you and your health than you can possibly imagine. And that reminds me—" The demon hadn't moved at all in this entire conversation, but now she leaned forward until her face was very close to his. "That think you asked me earlier, about why I wasn't worried about you getting back home?"

"Well, that's not exactly what I asked…"

She plowed on without even seeming to notice the interruption. "If you honestly think I can't stop you from whatever method of escape you take into your head, you're stupider than I thought—and I never gave you much credit in the first place. And if, by some miracle, you did get out for a few minutes, I'm more than capable of making you and everyone you've ever met wish I'd just killed you. You wouldn't last long, kid. Better to just go along with me on this, 'kay?"

Cal blinked up at her, honestly baffled. He had seen a lot of weird shit in his life, but this crazy demon chick with her mood swings and her calm confidence that she was in complete control of any situation—it was…odd, in a different way than anything Cal had encountered before. She seemed insane, but insane in an almost human way as opposed to the homicidal, decidedly inhuman madness of a creature such as Abaggor and Cerberus.

"Um…okay, sure, fine. I'll remember that," Cal said absently, because even though he'd figured as much and had, as such, had no intention of making an escape—not right yet, anyway—it seemed easier to just agree with the resident psycho.

"Make sure you do. And—"

This time the demon interrupted herself, falling abruptly silent and standing stock-still in an unmistakable "listening" pose.

Into the ensuing silence came a sound that made Cal, for the first time since the demon's appearance in his room, well and truly frightened.

"Little cooousin…"

XXX

"The problem is, they could literally be anywhere," Sam said, gazing down at a map of the city. "There's not even any reason to believe they're still in the country, let alone the state. If they really do want Cal to open a portal, they can probably do it from anywhere."

Dean had been looking thoughtfully down into his soda can, and now he looked up and asked abruptly, "How long does it take for Cal to open one of those things, anyway?"

"Seconds," Niko replied instantly. "If he wants to, he can build them in seconds. But I've seen him hold one for half an hour. I'm not sure if he can do it longer than that."

"But basically, if he'd given in, he could have opened his gate by now."

"I suppose."

"Hmm…"

"What're you thinking?" Sam asked, taking in his brother's thoughtful expression.

Dean shook his head a little and reached to the nightstand for his phone.

"Who're you calling?"

"Ash," Dean replied, and a look of comprehension dawned on Sam's face.

"Ash is a…well, I don't know what he'd be called, actually, but we could just call him an analyst, I guess. If Cal's opened a gate already, Ash would be the one who would know."

Niko simply nodded at Sam's explanation—questions such as "how" being inconsequential for the most part—and kept his eyes on Dean, who was already relaying their request to Ash by the time Sam finished talking.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, just…hurry. If whatever took the kid pulls this off…I know, I know, I'm sorry, I just…really? Nothing? _Anywhere?_ Okay, jeez, no need to—yeah, thanks anyway. Yes, we'll pay you, I swear, next time we're in town. Uh-huh. Cool. Thanks. Bye."

"Nothing?" Niko said as Dean hung up.

"Uh…no. That kid must have some guts," Dean replied, looking unsure whether to be sorry or not.

_Yes, he does, and they're going to get him killed, _Niko thought, jaw tightening.

"Here's what I don't get," Sam spoke up. "If Cal can just open a gate and _poof_ anywhere he wants to go, why isn't he here yet? Or why hasn't he at least gone to a safe place and _called?_ I mean, couldn't he just…?"

"C'mon, Sam, you know as well as I do that whatever demon has Cal could most likely keep him from going anywhere it doesn't want him going. And maybe he hasn't even been able to try. He could be unconscious or—"

Sam shook his head a little with a sharp look to the side at Niko, and Dean fell abruptly silent.

But then, Niko had never exactly had any trouble filling in blanks.

Dean's phone rang again before he could say anything. The tiny screen said "Ash," and before he'd thought about it Niko was reaching for the thing and flipping it open.

"Uh…yeah, sure, you can use my phone," Dean snapped, irritated.

"Thank you," Niko replied absently. "Hello?"

"Uh…you're not Dean," said the voice on the other end, sounding…rather uninterested, actually.

"No, I'm not. It's my brother we're trying to find."

"…Okay. Well, I guess you could maybe explain to me why there are about five of those gate things you mentioned opening under your Brooklyn Bridge?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but there's _something_ happening there, and that's as good an explanation as any. But here I was thinking you were only expecting one."

"We were," Niko said hollowly. "Thank you for your help." With numb fingers he closed the phone and handed it back to Dean, who took it, looking puzzled.

_Not this. Not now. Please…_

XXX

An expression of fear looks the same on a possessed human and a non-possessed one, it turns out. Cal filed that knowledge away for future information as the demon stared in the direction of the call, her terror written plainly on her face.

Cal knew exactly how she felt.

But then she whipped around to face him, and abruptly the fear was replaced with sheer rage.

"_You called them?"_ she shrieked, so loudly that it echoed, and Cal had the insane urge to clap a hand over her mouth to shut her up even though of course there was no way the Auphe would be fooled by that.

The idea that he'd willingly called the Auphe—well, that was just funny, and he would have to remember to have a good laugh over it.

But later, because the demon evidently took his silence as assent, and all thoughts disappeared as she leapt on him—except for one: when this demon had been…um…"torturing" him earlier, she really hadn't meant to hurt him at all. Or much, at least. But apparently she intended to do so now, because it felt like she was literally ripping him apart. And evidently she'd forgotten about his head, because one of the first things she did was to deal him such a blow there that for a few moments all he could see was gray.

It took maybe thirty seconds for her to back off, but the fact that she'd evidently grown extra hands and feet with which to hit him made the time seem longer.

But then, she would let her rip his head from his body if it would keep the Auphe away.

"Little cooousin…we're heeere…"

The first one appeared around the corner, as lethally quick and chillingly focused as Cal remembered. Without even thinking about the pain it would cause, he pushed himself up enough to scramble back into the wall, reaching automatically for a gun that wasn't there.

As it happened, though, he didn't need a gun right yet, because the Auphe weren't coming for him. Or if they were, they had something else on the agenda, too.

They hit the demon with all the force of a hurricane, first the one in the lead and then the four following it, and began ripping, tearing, and—God—_chewing_, without so much as a look in Cal's direction. The demon screamed…for awhile. But eventually the screams died away, leaving only the kinds of sounds Cal had never heard and never wanted to hear again.

He tuned them out, though, in his frantic attempts to still the whirling in his head long enough to gate…_anywhere_, up to and including a very small tank completely filled with starved sharks. But the more he tried the further it seemed to slip from him, until he couldn't even capture the visceral feeling that told him there was the _potential_ for a gate.

The Auphe who'd led the charge finally back away from the body, and Cal saw with dull horror that it was still moving, twitching weakly. The horror turned to fear again when the creature spoke to the demon in its icy, sibilant voice. "Ours," it said clearly. "You cannot use him. He is not for you. _He…is…ours."_

It licked almost delicately at the blood on its nail and turned to Cal.

"Hello, little cousin," it said, its voice quiet but carrying. "Yes, try to hide. We see you."

Only then did Cal realize that he'd been attempting to burrow into the rock wall behind him, adding scraped and gouged knuckles to his list of injuries. This was just what the Auphe turned him into—a gibbering idiot from a seriously badass (unless you asked Niko) genetic mutant and monster killer.

_I wish Niko was here._

Cal only realized he'd spoken aloud when the lead Auphe grinned, baring yellowed fangs, and said, "No big brother this time, little cousin. No brother, no gates, no hope. All alone, and now it's time to come home."

Only in Cal's world could the word "home" bring such a wave of sheer mind-numbing terror, and he found himself clawing even more frantically at a wall he knew wouldn't offer any protection, out of pure desperation more than any expectation that things would have changed.

And finally—_finally—_he felt the gate begin to open behind him.

XXX

"We have to go."

"Uh…go?" Sam asked. "Go…where, exactly?"

"To our apartment. I need more weapons than I have now."

"Hey, you wanna fill us in here, dude/ What'd Ash say?" Dean asked impatiently.

"That we—or I, at least—have to go to Brooklyn Bridge. _Now."_

"Niko what the hell is going on?" Sam asked, sounding confused and a little irritated.

"Look, if you'd like to come I'll tell you on the way, but I should have been gone already," Niko said firmly, ending the conversation by the simple expedient of walking out the door in the middle of Sam's next sentence.

He clung tenaciously to the hope that he would not find Cal under the Brooklyn Bridge, that his brother would stay lost for just a little longer. But it was a frail hope, and under it was the terrible feeling that maybe, just maybe, after all this, he was already too late.

XXX

Cal came out on the living room floor of his and Niko's apartment, once again breaking the furniture into pieces. This time, though, instead of jumping up to call Niko, he simply lay there in the wreckage, unmoving. He felt the gate dissipate behind him and realized that by some miracle none of the Auphe had followed him through. He would have cried with relief if a) he had the ability to cry and b) he was sure that crying wouldn't tear something vital inside him as thoroughly as he'd trashed the living room. But as it was he just lay there, doing his best to keep perfectly still, because he knew that if he moved nothing good could possibly come from it.

But Niko was out there somewhere, probably mightily pissed off and not a little worried, probably ready to do something stupid, with Auphe running loose around the city…

The last thought was enough to spur him into action. He shifted slowly, hearing wood splinter further around him, and cautiously began to sit up. He'd made it almost halfway into a sitting position before his head—his entire body, actually—exploded, pulling a gray film back down over his eyes—which he was getting far too used to—and then going on to paint that gray film black—which was something new.

The next few minutes were hazy, at best. There was mostly pain, especially of the explosive headache variety, but also accompanied by muscle seizure and the sharpness of broken bones. Distantly he heard his own choked gasps, although at least he didn't actually yell out loud and send his manly pride packing. Then, over those sounds, he eventually began to pick up others—voices, and keys rattling in the door. It took a few moments, what with the word going all tilted and misty again when he tried to turn his head, but soon he'd managed to pick up the scent he'd been searching for.

He'd closed his eyes in order to steady both his head and his stomach, but he didn't need to see to know what was going on. Niko would have gotten inside first, and his impossibly deft mind would have put the whole scene together in no more than a second or two. Cal listened as those familiar steps quickly crossed the room to his side, followed by two others—who they belonged to, Cal wasn't quite sure, but Niko had brought them, so it must be okay.

"Cal?" came the soft question, followed by the barely-there brush of a hand on his shoulder that he'd known was coming. Then came the equally expected fingers pressed against his neck to check his pulse, and if Niko didn't quite sigh when he felt the beat, Cal knew the relief was there all the same.

Then came the part he'd been dreading. Niko began running a quick hand over his body, checking for injuries. His touch was gentle as only Niko's could be, and as such only caused moderate pain—until he came up to check Cal's head. At that point Cal's eyes shot open, the world turned entirely upside down, and he proceeded to disgrace himself forever and always by first vomiting on his brother's shoes and then passing out completely right in front of him.

* * *

_Author's Note: I'm not sure I really like the way this chapter flows—especially the end, which seems just plain choppy and lame—but I wanted to get a new chapter out to y'all before I get my wisdom teeth out Thursday, just in case that keeps me out of commission for longer than I'm planning for it to. Hope you like it anyways!_


	8. To Tell Or Not To Tell?

Chapter 7

Niko stared down at the now-still form of the brother he'd been all set to go and rescue. He hadn't quite been able to believe it when he'd come into the apartment to find Cal lying prone in the broken pieces of their living room furniture. He'd been preparing himself to find Cal in the sewers, gravely injured (but not dead, never dead, nor taken, ever again) or not to find him there at all. None of the scenarios he'd contemplated had included Cal escaping on his own and going right back to their apartment.

His surprise only lasted for a moment, though, and then abruptly everything snapped back into focus. He heard Sam and Dean shifting around behind him, but ignored them in favor of continuing his triage of Cal. In a few moments he'd managed to establish that while his brother's injuries would cause him a great deal of pain for a while, they probably weren't life-threatening if properly cared for.

He spent a few more moments studying Cal's battered face, then turned abruptly to Sam and Dean and said tersely, "The bathroom's right through there. There's a first-aid kit in there. Will one of you get it, please?"

"Uh, sure," Sam said, and in two strides disappeared from the room.

"Is he okay?" Dean asked, and Niko looked back to find him still standing in the same place, his gun held loose at his side, watching Cal with something akin to concern.

"He's home," Niko replied quietly. "He'll be all right." _I'll take care of him._ He turned back to Cal and, after watching him for another moment, decided that he was probably out for awhile. As much as he always hated having his brother unconscious, he had to admit that at the moment it was probably no bad thing. At the very least, it would keep him from vomiting again. _You're cleaning my shoes when you're feeling better, by the way, _he promised Cal silently as he began the process of moving him to his room.

"Need any help?" Dean asked behind him as Sam came back with the first-aid kit.

"Thank you, but I've got him," Niko said. As he'd expected, Sam and Dean followed him to Cal's room and stood behind him as he deposited Cal gently on the bed. Sam set the kit on the nightstand, and as he did several things clicked into place in Niko's mind.

Item one: The Auphe, Cal's worst nightmare, had almost certainly appeared right in front of him—and probably attacked him—not half an hour before.

Item two: Given item one, Cal would definitely be having some bad dreams tonight—the kind that, more often than not, came with sleep-talking and sometimes sleep-screaming.

Item three: Sam and Dean Winchester were hunters, and as hunters they would be curious as to what monsters could cause Cal that kind of terror. They would ask questions about the Auphe, and while Niko was fairly certain they wouldn't be able to guess the truth, he really didn't like the idea of any questions being asked at all. Especially not right now, when the memories would still be so raw in Cal.

With these thoughts whirling in his head, Niko turned back to the Winchesters. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you for helping me—for being willing to. I can take care of him now."

"We could stay," Sam offered. "Just in case."

Niko shook his head. "No, you couldn't. You need to go."

"Hate to break it to you, man, but no, we don't. We need to stay and figure out if Cal really did escape or if that demon let him go after he opened a gate for it. I know what Ash said, but he's been wrong before, and I'd still like to get it straight from the horse's mouth. 'Cause if there is a gate open out there—"

"Go," Niko said. He wasn't angry—even now he felt it was worth a gate to hell if it returned Cal to him—but he wasn't exactly in the mood for accusations, either. "Now."

"Dude, are you even listening? What if—?"

"Dean," Sam said quietly. "Don't. Not right now."

"Sammy—"

"Look, if a gate did open we can't do anything until Cal's up anyway. We might as well go back to the motel. But Niko, will you at least call us when you know for sure? At least give us that much."

"I'll give you more than that," Niko replied without looking at Dean. "If it did happen, Cal will close the gate and we'll help you deal with the consequences. Just…please leave now."

Sam nodded once and said, "Thanks. C'mon, Dean."

"But…" Dean started to protest, then sighed heavily and said, "Whatever. Fine. But if we don't get a call by morning I'm coming back."

His voice faded away as he and Sam headed back toward the door, and Niko let out a long breath before beginning to clean Cal up.

XXX

The head injury was the worst—a bad concussion, maybe even a cracked skull—and after he finished with it the rest of Cal's injuries seemed a lot less grotesque. Well, except for his ribs—one or two of them might have been broken, but, as with his skull, there was nothing a doctor could do that Niko couldn't. In the end, he ended up just wrapping them as well as he could and then leaving them alone.

Still, Cal seemed…remarkably healthy, for someone who'd obviously been thoroughly beaten. Aside from his ribs, his head and the bruises covering three-quarters of his body, he seemed okay—no apparent internal bleeding, his pulse strong and steady…

He'd survived. By some miracle, he'd pulled through again, and once Niko finished bandaging him up as he took a moment to simply revel in that fact. Cal had apparently never realized that his big brother tended to do that after these kinds of close calls, mostly because he usually had other things to do while he reveled. But right now Sam and Dean were gone, and there was nothing to be done until Cal woke up to fill in the blanks of their time apart, and so Niko was able to simply sit next to Cal on the bed, watch him sleep, and catch up on the meditation he'd sorely neglected over the last day.

By the time he'd gone through his mala beads a couple of times he felt steadier inside, steady enough to begin planning for the number of unpleasant things that could happen once Cal woke up. And between the two demon hunters who had no idea Cal was actually (at least in part) one of the creatures they killed on a daily basis, the new gate that could be bringing a slew of hellspawn into the world at this very moment, and all the evidence pointing to the fact that the Auphe were back again for Cal, Niko had never had quite so many unpleasant possibilities to plan for.

XXX

_Cal scrambled backward over the rocky ground until his back hit rough stone, and then he tried to scramble back some more, as if he could go through the wall and escape his all-too-inevitable fate. He wrestled frantically with his gate, feeling it struggling to come into being, feeling his energy draining as he tried harder and harder to pull it open the rest of the way._

_And all the time, hearing the voice in the back of his mind—that cold, mocking Auphe voice telling him, over and over, that it wasn't enough, that he was about to die here in this dank, miserable goddamn _sewer_, alone, without Niko…_

_As one, the Auphe in front of him grinned as if in response to his thoughts, and as one, they leapt…_

"Cal."

"No..."

"Cal…"

"No…you…you can't take me…no…"

"_Cal, wake up!"_

Cal jerked awake as soon as the hand touched his shoulder, and his balled fist was halfway to Niko's jaw before it was caught in a carefully loose grip.

"Sloppy, little brother," Niko said in a perfectly steady voice. "However, taking into account the trying day you've had, I'll let it slide this time." He held onto Cal's hand just long enough for the warmth of the hold to sink in, then set it gently back down at Cal's side. "How are you feeling?"

Cal blinked up at him as his memory began piecing itself back together. After a moment, he managed to find his voice. "Hi," he murmured, surprised at the exhaustion layering his own voice. "And also ow."

Niko smiled a little. "Is that your way of answering my question?"

"Mmm…you know me. The fewer words, the less effort, and the happier I am."

"Well, then I'm afraid you'll have to be rather unhappy for the next little while. Now answer my question. Fully, if you please."

Cal closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and said, "Now that you mention it, the pain is a little…blinding…"

"Your head? And whatever you do, don't nod or shake."

"Like you even needed to tell me," Cal groaned. Now that it had begun to sink in that he was home, he was unfortunately able to notice that every inch of his body felt like it was either on fire or simply throbbing enough to make him nauseous. And every second the pain seemed to get worse, until he was clenching his teeth against incredibly unmanly whimpers. "Nik, it hurts…"

"I know. I'll get you something for it, if you can tell me for sure that you haven't been given any weird drugs or sedatives."

"I wasn't. I promise. Pills. Now. Please."

He'd barely finished speaking when he felt the requested medication pressed into his hand, and without opening his eyes he swallowed them gratefully. He heard Niko resume his position on the bed, and for awhile neither of them spoke as the pills began to take effect. During that time, Niko didn't touch him, but his presence was enough: the fear he'd felt of being pursued gradually began to fade, leaving Cal feeling, if not quite safe, then at least brave enough to resist the urge to vomit on himself and faint if someone besides Niko entered the room unexpectedly.

After about half an hour, Niko shifted slightly. Cal looked up at him, and found Niko looking back at him with an expression Niko knew all too well.

"You're gonna make me talk about this, aren't you?" he said, staring down at the blankets covering him and playing absently with a loose thread.

"I'm afraid so," Niko replied. Cal began picking at the thread more violently, and only stopped when Niko reached out and put a hand over his, lifting it and placing it firmly on Cal's chest. "So," he went on conversationally, "do you want to begin with the Auphe finding you in the sewer, or would you prefer to tell me the whole story from the beginning?"

Cal blinked, then sighed a little. "I talked in my sleep, didn't I?"

"Well, yes, a little, but you said nothing specific. Actually, I talked to a man earlier tonight who can—apparently—track gates."

"…Come again?" Cal asked blankly.

"You heard me."

"Uh…okay. So what is he, then?"

"Human, I believe. Some sort of technical analyst, I think is what Sam and Dean said. We were using him on the off chance that you would open a gate from wherever you were. Actually, I really have no idea how he does it, but he could tell when the Auphe began opening their gates—I was on the phone with him at the time."

"Oh…right…wait, back up a little. Sam and Dean were with you?"

"Yes, I went to them after the demon took you. They were the only ones who knew enough to help, with Robin…wherever Robin is at the moment."

"Okay, I'm…confused. How did you even find them? I thought they'd left town. And I thought you didn't want anything to do with them."

Niko raised an eyebrow and asked in a level voice, "They could help me get you back home. Do you really think that I hesitated for a single second?"

"All right, point to you. But that still doesn't explain how you found them or what the hell has been going on while I've been gone."

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," Niko said calmly.

"And I'm going first, aren't I?"

"You are, yes."

Cal sighed again, then winced. "Can't I just take a nap instead?"

"Do you really feel like you need to sleep now?"

"You know me—I always feel like I need to sleep," Cal said lightly. When Niko just looked impassively at him, he continued reluctantly, "But no more now than usual, I guess. Fine, let's get it over with, then. What do you want to know?"

"Well, first of all, Sam and Dean thought that the demon took you because it wanted you to open a gate to Hell for it."

"Damn…they're good."

"It's true, then."

"Um…yeah. She took me to…to the Brooklyn Bridge, near where Abby died. She meant to torture me, and I guess she did give it the old college try, but mostly she just talked at me. I think she was afraid to cause too much damage, since—as we both figured out at about the same time—if my mind is too clouded I can't open a gate. And yes, that's why I didn't just use one to get back to you."

"Yes, that does make sense. But then why do you look…like this?" Niko asked, gesturing to Cal's numerous bruises.

Cal grimaced. "Yeah, well, when…uh…when the Auphe turned up, the demon chick got…a little pissed. Or a lot pissed, actually. She thought I'd called them." He laughed hollowly. "She seemed to think they'd be inclined to _save _me…" He trailed off, his eyes back on the blankets.

"Then what happened?" Niko prompted. "Did the Auphe do something to her?"

Cal's hand balled into a fist, despite the small stab of pain. "Yeah, they…uh…they ate her. Or the girl she was possessing, anyway. I watched them do it. They ripped her apart, and…_chewed_ at her. They told her that she…that she couldn't have me. That I was theirs. And then they turned to me and told me it was time to come home, and I tried to open a gate but my head was still too foggy, and they started coming at me, and I kept trying to open a gate but I couldn't, and then they jumped at me, and then it just _opened_, and I thought I could control it better than that, I thought I could open it while they were still far enough away, but I couldn't, but for some reason they didn't follow me through, and now they could be coming, and we have to be _careful_, because…"

Niko laid a hand on his arm and squeezed, and he realized then that he hadn't taken a breath in far too long. As he choked on some air, Niko said gently, "You're home now. It's over, little brother."

"You of all people know that's not true, Nik," Cal protested. "It's never over. Not with them."

"Well, for now it is. For now, you're home. You're safe. I swear. All right?"

And since it was Niko, Cal couldn't help believing him.

"So. Your turn. Tell me what you've been up to with Sam and Dean."

"What do you mean, what I've been up to? I've been trying to find you!"

"Yeah—with Sam and Dean."

"Why do you keep saying their names like that?"

"Because I think it's important, that's why. And on second thought, I don't really care how you tracked them down or what you guys did while I was gone. I care about why you went to them in the first place."

"I told you. Cal, I needed them to find you. They were a resource, and I used them as such."

"Okay, yeah, and I believe that's true. But I also think there's another reason you went to them."

"Cal…" Niko said warningly, but Cal wasn't in the mood to heed any warnings.

"They're your brothers, Niko. Brothers you didn't even know you had until a couple days ago. And I know you said you don't need them and I'm more important, and I know you really do think that and I appreciate it, but that doesn't mean you can't at least get to know them."

"Oh, yes, 'get to know them,'" Niko said. "And let them get to know me, and through me, you. _That_ will be a fun conversation. First I'll tell them I know we're related because you could _smell_ the relationship, which will segue nicely into a discussion of your Auphe half, and then, once we've finished this nice little chat, I'll have to kill them to keep them from coming after you. Somehow, I don't see us coming back from _that_ with any kind of familial bond."

Cal narrowed his eyes at him. "When, exactly, did you become the smart-ass and I become the sage?"

"Sage? You? No. You see, the word 'sage' would imply some degree of intelligence, which you clearly lack if you expect me to simply invite two strangers into our lives."

"Are you even listening to me? They don't have to stay strangers. And I'm not suggesting you tell all. I'm just saying…maybe a beer, or something."

"I don't drink."

"You know what I mean!"

"Yes, I do, and thank you for trying to do what's best for me, but I just…don't happen to agree that Sam and Dean are what's best for me."

"Look, nothing has to change! It'll still be you and me against the world, just…maybe with more back up options, someone else to turn to if we need it." _And you'll have someone there for you, no matter what happens to me._

Maybe Niko saw this last thought in Cal's expression, because his face suddenly set, and he said abruptly, "You should get some rest now. We can talk more about this tomorrow."

Cal glared at him. "Fine, you stubborn bastard. But only because these are really good meds and I'm _really_ tired. But don't think this conversation is over, 'cause it's not."

"Duly noted."

XXX

"Okay, that's it, we've stuck around here long enough."

Sam glanced up from his book to check the time. "Dean, it's barely eight o'clock," he said in exasperation.

"Which is officially morning, which means I held up my end of the bargain. They didn't. I'm going over there. Are you coming or what?"

XXX

"I find it completely ridiculous that we're still arguing about this. Don't you want any breakfast?" _Is there anything that will get you off of this subject?_

"Breakfast sounds good," Cal replied. "But it can wait," he added as Niko started to get up. "Until we've settled this."

"I think we've proven that we are never _going _to settle this. It seems to be one of the things that we'll never agree on."

"Yeah, because you're being a stubborn bas—"

"Cal, for the last time, I said no," Niko said. It came out a little sharper than he'd intended, and he softened his voice before continuing. "Look, it's over, all right? This whole ordeal is over. You're home now, Sam and Dean are leaving town, and there's no reason to believe we'll ever see them again…"

Someone knocked on the door, followed by a voice calling, "Anybody home?"

Cal raised an eyebrow and almost succeeded in not looking smug. "You were saying?"

Niko let out a long, slow breath. "I'm going to get rid of them. Don't move. Pretend to be asleep or something. Or better yet—_really_ go back to sleep." He didn't give Cal a chance to reply before striding from the room.

He took another breath and let it out in an attempt to center himself before he opened the door, and it was a good thing he did, because he saw another argument in the making as soon as he set eyes on the Winchesters.

"Morning," Dean greeted him cheerfully. "Everyone still alive here?"

"I don't think that's funny," Niko said flatly.

To his surprise, Dean immediately looked a little guilty. "I guess not. Sorry."

"Really, though, how are you two?" Sam asked as he stepped inside behind his brother. "Is Cal okay?"

"He will be, in time."

"Has he told you what happened yet?" Dean asked, still in the same apologetically polite tone. "You know…uh…answered that nasty little question we need to know about? 'Cause you said you'd call and let us know by morning, and…"

"It's eight fifteen."

"See, that's what I said," Sam remarked lightly, smiling innocently when Dean threw him a glare.

"Yes, we talked. He told me everything, and while we'd prefer to keep most of it between the two of us—" He didn't think Sam and Dean would know him well enough to translate that into its true meaning—"If you value your lives, don't push it"—but they didn't question him. "—I can tell you that he didn't open a gate."

Both of them visibly relaxed, and Sam murmured, "Thank God."

"And he still got out of there alive," Dean observed. "That is one damn lucky kid."

Nothing in his voice indicated that he thought one or both of them were lying. He just sounded impressed, which prompted Niko to return his smile. "Yes, he is. He always has been, which is a good thing, since he gets himself into so much trouble."

"Sounds like someone I know."

"Hey! Just standing here!" Sam protested. "Sounds more like you, anyway…"

"So," Dean said loudly, pointedly turning away from Sam. "It's over, then? This isn't gonna come back to bite us all in the ass?"

"No. Everything will be fine now."

"Great! Awesome! So we can get the hell outta here now?" Dean asked, directing the question to Sam.

"Don't mind him—he's just…not too into New York, for some reason," Sam said apologetically. "Yes, Dean, we can go now."

"Actually…there's one more thing," said a fourth voice, and Niko groaned inwardly as he, Sam and Dean turned almost as one to face Cal, who was leaning against his doorframe, pale with pain but clearly determined as he continued. "There's something you guys need to know."

* * *

_Author's Note: So…been a while, huh? I'm sorry! I would've gotten it out sooner, but there were circumstances beyond my control…_

…_Okay, fine, I admit it. I bought an Xbox and Fable 2, and it ATE MY LIFE, y'all. I spent almost seven hours yesterday before work playing that game without even going anywhere in the actual storyline. Hopefully whoever might be reading this is a game geek like me and will understand—but either way, my apologies…and it's not like that was ALL I've been doing. It's MOSTLY what I've been doing, but I do work, too..._


	9. Family Matters

Chapter 8

Niko felt an odd roaring in his ears, and a feeling rose up in him that he didn't recognize until a moment later, when he realized it was disbelief. He couldn't remember Cal ever truly, blatantly going against his wishes before, not on something this important.

"Cal," he said quietly, wondering if anyone other than Cal could hear the warning in his tone.

"Niko," Cal replied, deadpan, but the look in his eyes said plainly that he'd picked up on the warning—and had just as plainly chosen to disregard it. In fact, his expression spoke volumes—or started to, until he began to tip forward and had to catch himself by gripping the doorframe. As one, all three of them started toward him, but of course Niko got there first.

"I cannot believe you," Niko seethed, so quietly that Sam and Dean couldn't hear. He let Cal lean against him, supporting him even as he continued to growl at him. "You really didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

"I heard. I just disagreed," Cal grunted as Niko deposited him on the couch and stuffed some pillows behind him, his movements clipped as they only were when he was angry.

"So you just decided to tell them, and that's it. You're going to make yourself two _more _enemies who wish you dead out of a misguided—"

"Who said anything about making enemies?" Cal asked. "Just…trust me, okay?"

Niko's jaw clenched, but he was careful not to let anything else betray his anger. "If I have to kill them when you're done, you're scrubbing the blood out of the carpet. With your toothbrush and without soap."

"Uh…guys, is there any chance of you wrapping this up anytime soon, or should we just take off so you can continue this?" Dean asked behind Niko.

"No, we're done," Cal said quickly. "Um…could you guys sit down?"

_If only he were always that polite,_ Niko thought ruefully as he took a seat at the free end of the couch. Sam and Dean took the other seats, looking faintly curious now.

"Okay, what is this?" Dean asked after a moment of silence. "Why do you two look so tense all of the sudden?"

"Well…uh…we have to tell you guys something, and…you probably aren't gonna like it. Actually, I _know_ you're not gonna like it. It's…well, it's about our mom. Mine and Nik's."

"Uh…" Sam said, looking quizzically at Dean. "…Okay What about her?"

"Her name was Sophia. Sophia Leandros?" Cal said, with just the faintest inflection on the last syllable to make it a question. He seemed to be studying the Winchesters for some sign of recognition, but they both looked utterly nonplussed. "We think she knew your father."

Sam blinked. "What, you mean she was a hunter or something?"

"Um…not exactly." Cal took a deep breath. "Okay, here's the deal. Nik and I are only half-brothers. I know my dad—" His mouth twisted bitterly, and Niko did his best to keep his movements subtle as he squeezed his brother's knee. "—But Nik never met his. Our mom didn't really talk about him much, but she said a couple things. She said he traveled a lot, and he never told her why, really. But he did come back around every six months or so, just for a night or two, and during one of those visits she—uh—she got pregnant with Nik here. She told us his name once—one of the only things she ever told us about him—and…uh…it was…" Another deep breath. "It was John Winchester, guys."

It was a good thing that Niko was so accomplished at hiding his thoughts. He was quite able to act like this story—this incredibly, impossibly flimsy story—wasn't entirely new to him, with enough free brain space left over to concentrate on everything that could possibly go wrong now. He knew very well that there was no possible way for Cal to be sure that any part of his narrative was remotely plausible, and that it _was_ possible that Sam and Dean would see through him in a second and start demanding to know where he'd _really _gotten his information.

In summary, Cal was taking a great risk for very little reward.

Niko was going to kill him. He hoped his glare told Cal so.

Cal, though, seemed to be entirely focused on Sam and Dean, who had not yet said a single word in response to Cal's extraordinary pronouncement. They were sitting in their chairs as if turned to stone, and Niko was finding this to be one of the few times that he couldn't read another person.

He didn't like it, and found himself mentally reviewing the position of every hidden blade in the room.

The silence was finally broken by Dean, who said, very clearly, "No."

That was it. Just, simply, "No," and then a return to silence. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he wasn't glaring, but there was a certain implacable, threatening _something_ about him all the same, like he was daring Cal to press the issue.

Which Cal, being Cal, did, of course.

"I know, it's hard to believe, but…"

"My dad did not sleep with your mom, whoever the hell she is. It's impossible."

"Why?"

"_Why? _It just…_is_, okay? I'm sorry, but you've made a mistake. It must be another Winchester. Pretty common name, ya know. Come on, Sam. We still have to pack before check-out."

And without even looking at Niko, he got up and headed for the door. After a moment, Sam, looking torn between disbelief and sadness, got up and followed.

Neither of them looked back once.

XXX

"Of all the hair-brained, ridiculous, ill-conceived ideas you have ever come up with, this one takes the cake. And I was here for the Chili Dog Marathon of '92, the Chocolate Cake Binge of '97, _and _the Great Pizza Consumption of '98. But at least those only ended in large pools of vomit. Then again, this might even beat the time you saw an episode of MacGyver and decided to make your own gunpowder. I…cannot…_believe_ you."

Cal looked positively alarmed by his expression. "Nik, c'mon, don't be like that. I just wanted to help."

"I realize that. If I didn't you wouldn't be conscious to have this argument with me. That does not, however, excuse the danger you could have put yourself in."

"It wasn't much of a risk. They're only human—no match for you, bro."

"Thank you, but that doesn't make it any better."

Cal sighed. "Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's obvious that we're never gonna agree on this. Can't we just talk about something else?"

Maybe it was the fact that he was still white as a sheet; maybe it was just the exhausted note in his voice. Either way, Niko glowered at him for a moment and then said, "All right, we'll talk about something else." He'd been pacing back and forth in front of the couch, but now he resumed his seat at Cal's feet and asked, "Tell me, how did you come up with that story?"

Cal shrugged. "Seemed like a pretty obvious one to go with. I didn't have time to think of anything better."

"You realize that you took a lot of risks, pretending to know their father's traveling patterns. It's entirely possible that their father always had them with him when he traveled, that he never really travelled at all, that they have a _mother_ already and their father cheated on her….I grant you, they didn't seem to be suspicious, but you shouldn't have done it."

"Well, it seems like I've done a lot of things I shouldn't have done today," Cal snapped, starting to feel more short-tempered as the pain medicine Niko had given him began to wear off. "I took a chance, okay? I put a couple things together—the fact that they don't live here and seem to hate it anyway, the fact that the stuff they hunt can't always be in one place, the fact that this gig seems to have been passed down to them and that they only mention their dad, never their mom—I put it together and took a chance, and I'm not sorry I did. I thought you were gonna trust me."

Niko looked slightly taken aback. "I do trust you. That was never the issue. It's _them_ I don't trust. Although I guess it doesn't matter, since it would appear that we won't be seeing them again—really, this time."

Cal rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that kinda sucks. I guess I don't blame them, but still—it sucks."

"I don't know. It seems to me that we're simply back to the way we were before they came here, and that wasn't so bad an arrangement." Niko smiled as he spoke, his exasperation fading as Cal yawned.

"I know," Cal said, through the yawn. "I just thought it would be nice for you—hell, for _us—_to have someone else. So it's not just us against the world anymore."

"It isn't just us now. Not anymore. We have Robin and Promise, after all."

"Yeah, but family…family's different. You know that."

"They'll never be family, Cal," Niko said gently. "Not like we are. _You_ know _that_."

"Yeah. But they could be close. They could be _something._ And it would be nice, wouldn't it?"

Niko couldn't fathom it. He had never seen Cal so single-mindedly determined to add more people to their lives. He'd never even _liked_ people—he even only really liked Robin and Promise about half the time. And Niko, who usually knew Cal's thoughts as well as he knew his own, couldn't figure out what his brother was thinking now.

"Yes," he said, watching as Cal began to drift off. "It would be nice."

XXX

There wasn't a single sound in the car all the way back to the motel, and it was one of the few times when Sam wasn't sure how to break the silence. Not that he didn't try.

"Dean?"

"Now now, Sam."

"But Dean…"

"I said not now. I don't want to talk about it right now."

And so Sam subsided for the rest of the uncomfortable ride and into the motel room, where Dean grunted that he was going to take a shower.

Sam chose not to comment on the weirdness of Dean showering before they left for an all-day drive, and instead simply asked, "Do you want me to get take-out for breakfast or just pick up something on the way out of town?"

"Whatever," Dean said with a shrug, and then disappeared into the bathroom.

By the time he reemerged, Sam had their tiny table laden with Styrofoam take-out boxes, including all Dean's favorites. As expected, the second his brother saw it he rolled his eyes and muttered, "Great, it's time to _talk."_

"Yeah, it is," said Sam, who seemed to have acquired a sudden and intense determination while Dean had been in the bathroom. "Pancakes?"

Dean heaved a sigh and sat down in the other chair, pulling the offered box toward him. "There's nothing to talk about, Sam. It's a mistake. They were wrong. End of story."

"Dean…" Sam said. "You don't think it's possible that…"

"No, I don't. It doesn't make any _sense—"_

"Why not?" Sam asked reasonably, knowing that sometimes the thing Dean responded to best was sheer common sense.

Sometimes.

"Because…it just…it _doesn't," _Dean said. "I mean, how old were those guys? Dad would have had to have met this chick, like, right after Mom died. There's no way he slept with anyone—hell, _dated_ anyone—that quick."

"But how do you know?" Sam asked, deciding all at once to just drop any kind of subtlety.

"I just do. He wouldn't. He couldn't."

"He was grieving, Dean. People do crazy things when they're grieving. We both know that. And what do you really remember from that time?"

Dean shrugged. "Not much. He left us with Pastor Jim a lot in the early days."

"So he could have come to New York, then."

"He didn't."

"But he could have, and if he did, and he met Cal and Niko's mom, then—"

"Sam just…drop it, okay?" Dean said. He didn't sound angry, not even aggravated, just…tired. "It's over, okay? Even if it's true—and I'm not saying it is, because Sam, that would have been _way _beyond a simple mistake by the grieving widower—we're leaving town in an hour, and we won't see them again—"

And, perfectly on cue, as if someone above had just been waiting for yet another thoughtless repetition of that exact phrase, there came a knock on the door.

XXX

Less than an hour ago, Niko had whole-heartedly believed that he was perfectly happy to never see Sam and Dean Winchester again. He'd been content, after the initial argument with Cal, to drop the whole subject and start to get back to the way things were before that black vintage Impala had rolled across the Manhattan border.

He certainly hadn't harbored any plans, half-formed or otherwise, of waiting until Cal was deep in drugged slumber before calling Robin and Promise to come and stay at the apartment so that Niko could return to this dingy motel and talk to two people who in all likelihood would just open the door and tell him to leave anyway.

And yet, here he was. He wasn't nervous—or, if he was, he was never going to let anyone guess it—but that didn't mean he didn't wish he had a plan for this. He'd always had a plan for everything, for as long as he could remember, a Plan A and Plan B and Plan C-Z, and he didn't like being without one now. But honestly, how did one begin to _plan_ for something like this?

It was Sam who answered the door, his long, lanky form towering over Niko, his head a mere couple of inches from brushing the doorframe. He didn't look exactly surprised to see Niko, but he didn't look too happy, either. He simply regarded Niko with an impassive, unreadable expression that somehow didn't belong on his face, before stepping aside with a muttered, "Come in."

Dean stared at him as he stepped inside, his hair damp and his mouth full, evidently frozen mid-chew. For a moment their eyes remained locked; then Dean gave an enormous swallow and said, "Dude, can't you take a hint?"

"Sometimes, when one is given. But if I recall correctly, you gave no hints—you just left."

"Yeah, and in some cultures, that's a hint. A really, really obvious one, telling you to leave us alone."

"And I planned to," Niko said, as Sam walked by him to sit in the chair across the table from his brother. "I did, I planned to let you two leave town and never see you again."

"So why didn't you?" Sam asked, still perfectly indecipherable.

"My brother," Niko said simply. "Cal wanted me to come here."

Both of them stared at him, and he couldn't figure out why. Then Dean said, "Seriously?"

"Well, yes," Niko replied. "We argued about it, actually."

"So you just suck enough that he wanted to dump you on someone else?" Dean asked. "Like he just couldn't get you away fast enough once a convenient excuse came along?"

"_Dean!" _Sam said sharply, looking appalled.

"Relax, I'm kidding. Sort of."

"It's all right," Niko said, and was surprised to discover that it was. "To be honest, I was a bit confused about it myself. With our lives…well, we don't really trust outsiders. Cal doesn't usually even like them. So the fact that he wanted me to get to know you was…a surprise."

"Then why the hell are you here?" Dean asked flatly. "If you guys hate everyone, don't trust anyone, and you and Cal are really as close as you seem, then why did he want you to come?"

"He's scared."

There was a second in which everyone was silent and Niko tried to figure out who had spoken the truth so bluntly, before figuring out that it had been him.

Evidently this whole thing had taken more of a toll than he'd thought.

Niko sighed and said, "Look, I think that you two probably know better than anyone what it's like to only have one person in the world you can really count on. Is that true?"

"More or less, yeah," Sam said before Dean could speak.

"Well, that's been Cal and I for our entire lives. We take care of each other." Better not to go into details, even if he might be talking to two of the only people in the world that he and Cal's relationship was different than that of most siblings'. It could only get sappy if he did, and no one would want that. "But Cal…he attracts a lot of trouble. It's a simple fact that he isn't the fighter I am, and after this…incident…and another a few weeks ago, he's beginning to worry that he won't always be here. He wants me to have someone to trust, if that happens. It won't, but there's no convincing him of that, and to him there's nothing as important as making sure I always have someone."

"He told you all this?" Sam asked, while Dean looked aghast, apparently at the idea of Niko and Cal sitting down and having that kind of talk.

"He didn't have to. He's my brother," Niko replied.

"So…what, are you guys expecting us to sit up talking all night and hug and share our feelings and forge a…_relationship?"_ Dean asked, looking revolted at the very thought.

"No, actually, exactly the opposite," Niko said calmly.

"Okay, you've lost me," Sam said.

"All right, this is how it is," Niko said, carefully looking each of them in the eye. "I know that you two don't want to believe that we're half-brothers. But we are, I promise you. We are blood-related—and that doesn't matter to me at all."

Even Dean looked surprised by the iron firmness in his voice.

"What I mean is that just because we share some DNA does not make us family. I know, and I will make Cal understand, that _he_ is my family. He always will be, and you never will—just as Sam will always be your family, Dean, and vice versa, and I never will be. That is what you've been thinking, isn't it? It is at least part of the reason that you left our apartment so abruptly?"

Neither of them confirmed or denied this, and after a moment Niko went on.

"Anyway, I know that both of you are as uncomfortable right now as I am, so I'll go. I just wanted you both to know that you don't have to dwell on this. It doesn't have to change anything. Cal will be annoyed with me for severing whatever ties he thinks I should form with you, but then, I'm annoyed with him for pushing me on this, so we'll be well-matched." He smiled a little, then let it fade. "I should leave. I don't want to leave Cal for long. Good luck on your next job."

He was already halfway out the door when behind him Dean said, "Wait a second."

XXX

When Niko slipped silently into Cal's room fifteen minutes later, having dismissed his friend and his lover from guard duty, Cal was still sound asleep. He hadn't indulged in his usual sprawl, but rather lay half-curled, protecting his injuries. Niko crept up to his side on silent feet and pulled the blankets more securely around his shoulders before sitting down next to him. Cal didn't even twitch, so deep in drugged slumber that nothing short of an Auphe invasion would wake him now.

Niko studied his face in the dim moonlight coming through the open window, absently fingering the piece of paper in his pocket as his mind drifted back to the events of the last hour or so.

He was still surprised at himself for having talked as much as he did. He couldn't even remember opening up that way to anyone except Cal. It would be embarrassing, if he knew embarrassment. And he would have expected that the Winchesters would have been mortified at such a display.

Only they hadn't been.

In fact, his little speech seemed to have been the thing that had galvanized Dean into action. He replayed the scene in his mind's eye, seeing Dean's closed face as he turned around, the way the older Winchester looked at the younger as he reached for the piece of paper that Niko now pulled out of his pocket to examine.

He studied it for a long time before his attention was drawn by Cal groaning a little in his sleep and shifting his position the slightest bit. Niko made sure he wasn't waking, then turned to look at the time. It was still early, and he hadn't slept, nor would he today. He would wait until it was safe.

Until then, he would make lunch.

He tucked the phone number back into his pocket as he stood. He would keep it. He might even use it one day, because even if they would never have family with the Winchesters, maybe Cal was right. Maybe they could have…something.

And maybe, just maybe, "something" could be enough.

XXX

"I don't believe this. I _had_ him."

"Calm down. We'll get our chance."

"But how? That kid's gonna be as protected as the goddamn holy grail now!"

"Then we won't use him. Do you really think, darling, that I went in with that stupid little boy as my only hope? Please. No. Make no mistake, my dear: we are still in this."

Lilith smiled as she spoke, and after a moment the blond young woman who had lately called herself Ruby smiled back.

* * *

_Author's Note: Well, that was…abrupt, wasn't it? I expected this to go on at least another chapter, but I guess it's ready to be finished now. So…hmm…hope you enjoyed it, and review, please?_


End file.
